Question for the Members who paint and number their own locomotives and or for their own railroads. What numbering scheme do you use for your locomotives and perhaps rolling stock as well? Do you follow a protype scheme or have you divised one of your own. Next year I'll be repainting all my (31) locomotives to a common paint scheme and was looking for numbering ideas. Thanks See ya Ron
Look to the shortlines for inspiration, as well as a good Official Railway Equipment Register. You'll rarely find car fleets with less than four-digit numbers, and never more than six. Things are usually broken up into classes of logically-organized cars. Santa Fe has had distinct car class breakouts in the six-digit rule. But two things stand out, work equipment is 199XXX and cabooses were 999XXX. I use a 1972 period Official Railway Equipment register when I'm decaling and painting cars. I follow the Santa Fe 1972 roster for all locomotives. They did some wierd stuff like inexplicable number gaps in the F7's, and numbering CF7's backwards from 2649. When they renumbered the entire fleet in 1970, they really thought ahead and organized it well. Locomotives top out at four digits. Seems like any self-respecting shortline runs three, even if they have 10 locomotives. When UP ran out of numbers they had to go to "UPY" reporting marks to make more. Another trend is to 'adopt' the number from the previous owner, or part of the number from the previous owner. An ex-Santa Fe 2700-class GP7 2725 might become the 725 on the Prarie Dog & Cowpile. So if you're in the habit of buying secondhand power, that's a real trend. Change paint, leave number. In modern lines, the UMLER system leans toward leaving the equipment number in place and changing reporting marks, keeps a clean history. Some local regionals, like the Buffalo & Pittsburgh, just make no sense whatsoever. Lets use our numbers, partial numbers, and original numbers, for no good reason: Buffalo & Pittsburgh Roster That's more of a testimony to how difficult it is to get the FRA and UMLER to re-number a locomotive than anything else. My favorite 'DUH' numbering system is on the LA&L, all Alco, where a Century 420 is the 420, the C624 is the 624...etc. Yes, the C630 from the A&M is 630. So if you are a 'one of this, one of that' collector there is an answer. My favorite steam-era "DUH" is Climax, where unless you specified otherwise, the serial number of the locomotive was painted right on it. So you ended up with a logging railroad with Shay #2 and Climax #1208. Didn't you ask for #3? Forgot. Oh well.
I try to keep my numbering close to the prototypes, but not exactly. For instance, I model Rock Island mostly, and if I am modeling a Consolidation for example, I will look up Rock Island consolidations and see what they tend to number them. I see that many or 4 digit numbers in the 25XX range, I will number those 25XX range. E units, if they are 3 Digit 6XX, I will number my E units in those number ranges. If you are numbering freelance private roads, then, whatever you would want to in that case.
For my freelanced Minnesota International Ry, I used the horse-power based numbering system. Whereas a loco with 1800hp would be numbered in the 1800 series, 2000hp in the 2000 series, etc. On the MI Ry it's U18B's are in the 1800's, the B23-7's in the 2300's and the B40-8's in the 4000's.
Mexico (or some railroads in Mexico) uses as many as five digits in the locomotive numbering system. Utah Belt used horsepower for the first two digits and engine number for the next two digits. I was surprised how well this works out. The lower numbered engines have lower horsepower and tend to be older engines. I think it was a good numbering system.
USE A PROTOTYPE AS A GUIDE..... Since my freelanced Alabama Gulf Railway is owned 30% by KCS, I fit my loco numbering into the KCS roster empty numbers, like kind locos with like kind. However, since I have done this the KCS has come back and used some of those numbers. That's OK, since it's a different RR. I would find a RR that is similar in size to yours and mimic some of the numbering practices. It will be easier on you to track ! (Save an Excell file). Steven
Since I'm not a prototype fellow I number my steamers after my families' birth years. Father 11, mother 21, me 44, wife 47 etc. Cheers, Jim CCRR/Socalz44
I conceived a scheme once that I've never seen used. The numbering system would be based on either horsepower divided by tractive effort or on tractive effort divided by horsepower. For example, an SD70MAC with 4000 HP and 137000 lb continuous TE. 4000 / 137000 = 0.02919. So number SD70MACs in the 2900s. By this version, lower numbers are more suitable for high-speed service. If you did it the other way round: 137000 / 4000 = 34.25. SD70MACs would be in the 3400s, and lower numbers are suited for drag and switching service. Naturally, either scheme would lead to crowding of certain number ranges. I prefer the simplicity of British and European class numbering systems, but they require more than 4 digits.
Numbering locomotives for short lines can be tricky.. Here's my plan. C&HV Roster.. 100-104 GP7 EMD.101/103 wrecked/scrapped 8/90...100/102/104 are stored serviceable awaiting disposition. 200-205 GP9 EMD.202 wrecked/scrapped 8/90 ..201/203/204 stored serviceable awaiting disposition. 380-383 GP38-2 EMD 405-406 GP40-2 EMD 500 GP50 EMD. ------------- The GP7/9 numbers reflect the first and second group of locomotives. 380-383 reflects the model number-GP38-2s Same for the GP40-2s and GP50.
Ron, with 31 locomotives it sounds like your road is more of a regional than a short line. As others have pointed out, railroads don't necessarily have a "system" of numbering. The Pennsy roster is a case in point. Locomotives were assigned numbers on the basis of which numbers were not in use at the time. They did assign some classes numbers in blocks, however. A current example of this lack of a system might be Ohio Central. Road numbers go all over the place, mainly carrying their former owners' road numbers with them. The Susquehanna, on the other hand, numbers according to horsepower--even numbers only (to indicate MU capability.) The Alco C430's were 3000, 3002 etc, and when they acquired Tunnel Motors and SD40-2's they continued with 3010, 3012, etc. GP18's are in the 1800 series (but were not given new numbers when re-engined.) Another idea is a combination of horsepower and the number of axles. 4XXX for 4 axle units, 6XXX for six axle. Whatever you end up doing, you don't need to justify it! It might depend on whether your railroad gets it locomotive news or used. If the former, maybe a horsepower based system would be good.
One thing to consider is if your 31 engines are meant to be just part of a larger fleet, if so give them numbers further apart to indicate there are more engines, for instance, if you have three GP38's in the 1000 series number them, say, 1008, 1026, 1041, to indicate there may be 50 engines in the class. Some smaller roads like the Detroit & Mackinac numbered their diesels by the date they were delivered, ie; No.547 was delivered in May 1947. Sometimes numbers vacated by retired engines were reused creating seemingly random number series. The PRR and my employer Queensland Rail did this in the steam era, QR's 227 C17 class 4-8-0's were numbered anywhere between 2 and 1000.
I'm using the Wisconsin & Southern system: GP38's 3801, 3802 etc. SD40-2 4001, 4002 etc. It works for some rosters
I haven't done any customizing yet, but if I was going to, I would go to google images, and look for my locomotive and try and find a photo of it in my road, and use that number.
Here is a roster of Santa Fe diesels and a roster of Santa Fe steam loco's. (All the road numbers.) I model the Santa Fe up to 1963. http://rosters.gcrossett.com/atsf/all_time.htm http://atsf.railfan.net/atsfstea.html
I would suggest not to be as specific as the German Railway, using a 7-digit number (I guess it is a case of German over-engineering, though it does serve the purpose to identify the engine, the sub-class and the class for tracking and maintenance) This is engine 232 534-8 (so it is a "Dash 8" :tb-biggrin It looks like a lot of railroads used a horsepower based numberinbg systems for their road engines (NP for example did), but used a different system for switchers. Maybe that can add some variety to your numbering system. If some of your locomotives are older I suggest to add some variety to the paintjobs, maybe creating a "Standard" and a "New Image" version. This could add a historic dimension and potentially some plausibility to the fleet. Cheers Dirk
